Second World War - Target Filton

Make sure your volume is on: "...from all accounts, they went up higher, right very high up..."

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‘They had the raid at Filton, when I was at school. Actually I was 13 at the time, 1940, June 1940. And there was some soldiers killed on the Gloucester Road by Rodney Works, and there was some people in the air raid shelter got killed.’
‘But on the Friday they had a Polish squadron came down there and of course, I didn’t know about this, but radar was a secret thing, nobody knew about it back in those days, and they could sense there was this German squadron coming over from the channel, and they knew they were coming back to Bristol. And the Polish squadron, from all accounts, they went up higher, right very high up. Of course the Germans came over on the Friday thinking they were going to have a free go at us, and of course the Polish squadron came down, shot down quite a few of them. That was in 1940.’
‘They shot them down at Bristol. The Polish squadron was stationed at Filton, I don’t know where they came from, but they were sent, because they knew it was going to happen, they must have known they were coming back again, because being in an engine place in an aircraft works, they were making the Blenheims, and the engines and all that, they were making. So of course they wanted it all destroyed, and on the Friday they had the Polish Squadron up there, they didn’t loose their bombs, but I don’t think there was many people killed at all on the Friday. So that was in, I think it was June. I was at school then, 1940, that’s because I would have been 14 in the December and they came in that year when I was 13.’

Credit: Filton Community History
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